the only thing i'm not really liking is the whole bunch of lacing on the 24 pin and on the molex and sata. personally i think it'll look cleaner without them

You mean those fat bundles of lacing cord around the whole thing that make it round? Yeah
those are a bit large at the moment. Personally, I'm quite happy with the 24 pin as it is, but the
other one will have to be redone, sine it's not only very large but also not clean. But I've had to
bind it very tightly to get it to fit through the hole in the PSU's side.

I don't think I'm done yet with the lacing to be honest, but I'll first mount everything in, and then
I'll see how orderly I can get everything to look with the minimal amount of lacing cord. It's an
iterative process I would say.

I've been working on the back panel. Fitting is done, what's left is more or less half the painting
and some finishing touches.

Paint

Since I don't want to repaint the entire panel, I'm using this to paint each hole individually.
Yes, it's a rather slow process.

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Back Panel - Inner Side

This side has not been painted yet. I thought this would provide some good contrast to see
the difference.

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Back Panel - Outer Side

The screw holes won't be painted, since they won't be visible (also, they are threaded).

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Back Panel - Test Fit

It fits nice and snug, and it's all solid and good.

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Back Panel - M/B Test Fit

The M/B fits nicely to the new back panel. The I/O shield lines up perfectly.
You can also see the screws used to mount the panel. As you can see, there's no nuts involved, the threads
are directly in the back panel. It's thick enough for this to work nicely, as long as you're not too brutal there's
no danger of ripping the threads out of the aluminium.

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Todo

Next I'll be painting the panel's inner side, cutting the screws down to size and putting the hole thing together
permanently.

A few years ago (probably ~2007) I bought this nice little reservoir for my Eheim 1046.
It's a very handy little thing, and it's built like a bloody tank (seriously, you could bludgeon
somebody to death with this).

However, back then Aquacomputer had not yet fully jumped on the G1/4" train and was still
using G1/8" in many of their products (as they had since their inception).

This requires a rather ugly and unwieldy adapter when wanting to use modern fittings, such
as the lovely blue Monsoon ones I've bought.

The adapter itself looks like this:

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And with a fitting on it:

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The Plan

Well, it's quite simple really: Retap the hole to G1/4". However, this would leave me with a
slight problem: Naked aluminium exposed to the coolant. I will be using a corrosion inhibitor
in my loop, but I want to reduce the chance for corrosion to ruin the party by painting over the
naked aluminium and sealing the hole thing against the coolant.

Disclaimer

I'm well aware of what galvanic corrosion is and how it works (well, I'm not a chemist, but I have
a better grasp of it than most people I'd say). I'm not saying that what you're about to bear witness
to is a good idea or something you should necessarily try yourself. It's an experiment. If it works,
great, if not, I haven't lost anything since I have no more use for the reservoir anyway. But don't
anybody start panicking about corrosion please. I'm aware of the risks, I've weighed them and
I've made an informed decision to go ahead.

Protecting the Insides

Obviously we don't want to crash into the opposing inner wall with our drill.

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The Drill and Tap

The 11.80 mm drill bit with the G1/4" tap.

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Improvising

The 11.80 didn't fit into the drill bit adapter, so I had to improvise a bit. The adapter actually
belongs to a Bosch pneumatic drill hammer, but that thing is way too powerful for this sort
of thing, so I decided to go with this configuration. It worked surprisingly well.

Naturally I didn't just drill the G1/8" to 11.80 mm, but first to 9 mm, 10 mm and then to
11.80 mm (a 11 mm drill bit would have been handy, 10 to 11.80 is a rather large step).

(click image for full res)

Lubrication

I didn't have any actual lubricant specifically for this, so I just used some of the gun lubricant I have
laying around (both for drilling and tapping the thread). Since it's made for the high speed movement
of a gun action, it works very well for this.

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Tapping Hole

The 11.80 mm hole before threading.

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Threading

And after cutting the thread. You can clearly see how thick the walls are on this thing. That's
why you need to lubricate very well. Otherwise the drill just blocks.

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Test Fit

As expected, much better.

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Protection

Alright then, let's paint that sucker! I did one coat of etch primer and two coats of paint.
Obviously I can't really do proper surface treatment within the thread, or put on too much
paint since it will just get stripped off by the fitting's thread anyway, but this should work
well enough to prevent the coolant from getting to the naked aluminium.

(click image for full res)

And on the inside:

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Painted

The coat is pretty thick and has bonded nicely to the surface.

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Done

The Monsoon fitting hides the paint job very well, and it goes in and out without
strippint the paint off the threads (there were two small patches of paint stripped
off, but I've covered those with the Humbrol enamel paint and things are nice and
sealed now).

As you can see, the reservoir has sustained the occasional scratch over the years.